Source: Reddit
I (F27) received an inheritance when my grandmother passed away when I was 16. It went into a trust since I wasn’t an adult. I didn’t need it for school and my parents didn’t make me pay to live with them when I was a student.
I met my husband in high school and we went a long distance when he was accepted into a great school out of state. He got a lot of financial assistance and his parents helped him so he didn’t have to take out student loans.
When we got married we used some of my inheritance for a down payment on our home. We are not like some people in this sub. Our finances are OUR finances. We both work and pay for everything together.
My in-laws are not well off but they are not poor. They did not go into debt to help their son with his education. But they hold it over his head. Every time that we get together they insist on questioning his life decisions. He lives with them and will not tell them to leave him alone.
I have spoken to him about it because I can see it hurts him. So together we decided to end this.
We saw them for Thanksgiving and when they started in on him about going back to school to get his MBA instead of just working he told them to drop it. He said that just because they helped him did not give them the right to dictate his life. Any decisions he made for his future were for us to make and not them. They acted very insulted and said that they were his parents and they had a right to their opinions. He said he didn’t want to hear their opinions about our finances any more.
Well we just got home from visiting them over Christmas. It was a sh*t show. They started in on all their children. Saying how each one should be making better decisions since they weren’t going to be there to fix their problems with money.
As we had agreed I had my checkbook ready. I pulled it out and asked them to please tell me the exact amount they wanted for their son’s education. I said that I would pay them and then expect them to never bring it up again.
They got very upset. They said it wasn’t about the money. It was their children they were looking out for. All his other siblings told me that I was being an a**hole for telling my in-laws how to talk to their kids. Two of them have borrowed money from them and one still lives at home and needs them for school. We don’t need them for their money.
My in-laws finally agreed that they would not talk about our choices. But when we left it was still very tense.
My husband and I are satisfied with how it turned out, but his family is still mad at us. Did we go too far here ?
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